Steven Spielberg is making the press rounds for The Adventures of Tintin, and naturally he’s being asked the future of his franchises, specifically Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones. In June, we reported that Spielberg was brainstorming ideas with screenwriter Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend) on how to reboot the Jurassic Park. In a recent interview with Empire, Spielberg provided an update on the project:

“The screenplay is being written right now by Mark Protosevich. I’m hoping that will come out in the next couple of years. We have a good story. We have a better story for four than we had for three…”

Perhaps there will be less of a reliance on raptor whistles this time around. Hit the jump for what Spielberg had to say about the shortcomings of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the status of Indiana Jones 5.

Spielberg provides Empire with the sad news that when it comes to story, the power still rests with George Lucas:

“You have to ask George Lucas. George is in charge of breaking the stories. He’s done it on all four movies. Whether I like the stories or not, George has broken all the stories. He is working on Indy V. We haven’t gone to screenplay yet, but he’s working on the story. I’ll leave it to George to come up with a good story.”

There are no details on how far along Lucas is with the story, but who really cares? Does anyone look forward to anything he has to write? But let me repeat my favorite part of that update: “Whether I like the stories or not.”

Spielberg was somewhat-candid on his unhappiness with some aspects of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:

“I’m very happy with the movie. I always have been… I sympathize with people who didn’t like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin. George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn’t want these things to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to my best friend. When he writes a story he believes in – even if I don’t believe in it – I’m going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it. I’ll add my own touches, I’ll bring my own cast in, I’ll shoot the way I want to shoot it, but I will always defer to George as the storyteller of the Indy series. I will never fight him on that.”

I’d be interested to find out what Spielberg wanted the creatures to be (if he wanted them at all). And while he was unhappy with the aliens, he was pleased with some of the more-reviled elements of the sequel like the gopher. He even takes the bullet on nuking the fridge:

“What people really jumped at was Indy climbing into a refrigerator and getting blown into the sky by an atom-bomb blast. Blame me. Don’t blame George. That was my silly idea. People stopped saying “jump the shark”. They now say, ‘nuked the fridge’. I’m proud of that. I’m glad I was able to bring that into popular culture.”

At least he’s looking on the bright side of making Indiana Jones into a cartoon character.

The Adventures of Tintin (which early reviews are calling the real sequel to Indiana Jones) opens in the US on December 21st.